It is known that exhaled breath is commonly used in alcohol testing and today's technology makes it possible to perform on-site breath testing with legally defensible results using infrared spectroscopy.
Testing for other illicit drugs of abuse traditionally requires blood or urine samples. Alternatively specimens comprising hair, sweat or oral fluid could be used. Blood sampling is invasive and requires medically trained personnel, whereby test subject often have to be transported to a hospital for sampling. These procedures are time and effort consuming. With long lead times the test result will be too old. Urine sampling may also be considered intruding on personal integrity. Even other issues related to samples and specimens taken from a subject to be tested arise. For instance, blood samples, and especially urine samples are at risk of the subject exchanging the samples or using clean samples from another subject to avoid being discovered with traces of illicit drugs.
Thus, there is a need to provide a non-invasive, not-specimen based apparatus, system and/or method for detecting the presence (i.e. qualitative) or determining the quantitative amount of at least one drug substance in a subject. Particularly a device and method which should be easy to use with no or little training, especially a device and method for directly, at the site/on-site, screening a person for illicit drugs and obtaining results that could be approved by court.
Hence, an improved apparatus, system and/or method for at site/on site sampling of a subject for drug substances are desired. Such a device, system and/or method for sampling the subject for illicit drugs of abuse and/or medical drugs would be desired. The apparatus, system and/or method should be efficient, non-bulky, user friendly both for operators and the subject. It should further be not intruding and not invasive.
Another application would be to take samples from exhaled breath for sampling aerosols which may transport biomarkers. The samples could then be analyzed and detected biomarkers may be used for diagnosis of medical conditions of the tested subject. Measuring biomarkers in exhaled air would be non-invasive and enables repeated sampling which can be useful for early detection of disease as well as monitoring of disease progression and therapy response.
A known method for sampling biomarkers is Exhaled Breath Condensate (EBC) i.e. exhaled water vapor that is condensed by the means of low temperature. Both volatile and non-volatile compounds have been identified using EBC. The non-volatiles found in EBC are believed to originate from particles formed within the airways. The collection of exhaled breath condensate (EBC) is connected with a number of serious methodological difficulties such as dilution with water resulting in very low concentrations of the substances of interest, high contamination with substances originating from the oral cavity, high intraindividual coefficient of variation and a very inefficient way to sample, especially, non-volatiles compounds
Hence, a method solving the short come of methods for easy monitoring of the airways that also allows frequent sampling would be advantageously. Particularly if the method may be performed risk free. Thus, there is a need to provide a non-invasive based apparatus, system and/or method for detecting the presence (i.e. qualitative) or determining the quantitative amount of at least one biomarker for medical diagnosis of a subject. Particularly, a device and method being easy to use with no or little training, especially a device and method to be used directly, at the site/on-site, for sampling and/or testing a subject for a medical diseases or illnesses would be advantageously. The device and method should have a sensitive for biomarkers high enough to obtain results of a standard that could be used for diagnosis of medical conditions.
Hence, an improved apparatus, system and/or method for at site/on site sampling of biomarkers from a subject is desired. The apparatus, system and/or method should be efficient, non-bulky, user friendly both for operators and the subject.